
Why Belly Dance is Not a Folk Dance
I’ve been pretty quiet over here in blog land for various reasons. I’ve been teaching Dance Appreciation college course (sometimes 100+ students), my Mills College
Belly Dance and Fitness in the Pacific Northwest
I’ve been pretty quiet over here in blog land for various reasons. I’ve been teaching Dance Appreciation college course (sometimes 100+ students), my Mills College
Dear Karen, I have heard you say over and over again that you want to keep politics out of dance. That you’re upset that dancers
Is It Actually Fusion? More than 10 years ago, when I was experimenting with what I now like to call “interpretive” belly dance (i.e., “fusion”)
Belly dance is not the world’s oldest dance. There. I said it. I’m glad I got that off my chest. Seriously, though. It’s time we
Lately I’ve been seeing quite a few dancers using Jamila Format language and names to describe movements that aren’t… well, they aren’t the original steps
I slept in that day. It was already 10am when I woke up and got myself together to meet a friend for brunch, at PJ’s
The Dilemma of Dance Standardization In 1997, Shareen El Safy embarked on treading the treacherous waters of examining effort to standardize belly dance language in
In honor of the passing of Jamila Salimpour (1926 – 2017) Jamila Salimpour was a force of nature with an unextinguishable curiosity. Enraptured by
As I put together my eBook of past blog posts from my now-defunct Bellydance Paladin blog, I came across an entry that I wrote telling
“Enta Omri” Meets “Naughty Girl”… The footage of Beyoncé bumpin’ and grindin’ to a sample of Umm Kulthum’s classic and unparalleled classic song “Enta Omri”